Pending
before the court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss
Complaint (Docket No. 20). Plaintiff has filed a Response
(Docket No. 24), Defendant has filed a Reply (Docket No. 25),
and Plaintiff has filed a Sur-Reply (Docket No. 28). For the
reasons stated herein, Defendant's Motion will be
granted.

INTRODUCTION

This
action was brought by Keyes Fibre Corporation to resolve
whether Defendant, the Pace Industry Union-Management Pension
Fund (“the Fund”), in critical and declining
status, can require a withdrawing employer (Plaintiff) to pay
a pro rata portion of the Fund's accumulated funding
deficiency[1] through a unilateral modification to the
Fund's Rehabilitation Plan. Plaintiff alleges that the
Fund entered critical status, which means it is in dire
financial condition, in 2010 and, as required by the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), adopted
a Rehabilitation Plan to forestall insolvency.[2] A rehabilitation
plan consists of actions, such as reductions in plan
expenditures, reductions in future benefit accruals, and
increases in contribution rates, designed to improve the
fund's financial outlook. WestRock RKT Co. v. Pace
Industry Union-Management Pension Fund, 856 F.3d 1320,
1322 (11th Cir. 2017).

Plaintiff
asserts that, in 2012, Plaintiff and its employees' union
negotiated a renewed collective bargaining agreement
(“CBA”), in which Plaintiff agreed to continue
participation in the Fund and also agreed to the Fund's
2010 Rehabilitation Plan.[3]See Docket No. 1-2 (Article 23
of the CBA). Plaintiff claims that, in 2013, [4] the Fund's
trustees amended the 2010 Rehabilitation Plan to include the
following language: “In addition, in the event an
Employer withdraws during a Plan Year when the Fund has an
accumulated funding deficiency, as determined under Section
304 of ERISA, the Employer shall be responsible for its pro
rata share of such deficiency in addition to any withdrawal
liability determined under Section 4211 of ERISA.”
Plaintiff contends that it never agreed to be bound to any
amendment to the 2010 Rehabilitation Plan.

Plaintiff
withdrew from the Fund in 2016 when its CBA expired.
Plaintiff alleges that the Fund has demanded payment from
Plaintiff of a portion of the Fund's accumulated funding
deficiency in accordance with its 2013 amendment to the
Rehabilitation Plan. Plaintiff claims that requiring it to
pay this pro rata portion of the accumulated funding
deficiency violates ERISA. Plaintiff also asserts that,
because this action requires the court to interpret and apply
the language of a CBA, federal question jurisdiction exists
under the Labor Management Relations Act
(“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185. In its Response
to Defendant's Motion, Plaintiff claims that “[a]t
base, this case is about whether the Fund can unilaterally
alter - through the 2013 Amendment - a contractual commitment
to comply with the 2010 Rehabilitation Plan.” Plaintiff
then asserts that the court can and should assess whether the
Fund can impose the 2013 Amendment under the LMRA and whether
the Fund can unilaterally impose the 2013 Amendment against
Plaintiff under ERISA.

Defendant
asks the court to dismiss this action, arguing that ERISA
does not authorize an employer to bring suit to challenge an
aspect of a fund's duly-adopted rehabilitation plan.
Following Plaintiff's Response brief, in which Plaintiff
asserts that its claims also involve the LMRA, Defendant
argues that Plaintiff has not sufficiently pled a claim under
the LMRA, that any adjudication of the CBA in this case under
the LMRA would not resolve the dispute, and that Plaintiff
cannot bring a declaratory judgment action under the LMRA to
challenge the validity of the amended Rehabilitation Plan.

MOTIONS
TO DISMISS

For
purposes of a motion to dismiss, the court must take all of
the factual allegations in the complaint as true.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009). To
survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain
sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim
to relief that is plausible on its face. Id. A claim
has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual
content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged. Id. Threadbare recitals of the elements of
a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements,
do not suffice. Id. When there are well-pleaded
factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and
then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an
entitlement to relief. Id. at 1950. A legal
conclusion couched as a factual allegation need not be
accepted as true on a motion to dismiss, nor are recitations
of the elements of a cause of action sufficient. Fritz v.
Charter Township of Comstock, 592 F.3d 718, 722 (6th
Cir. 2010).

DECLARATORY
JUDGMENTS

The
Complaint states that Plaintiff brings this claim for
declaratory relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201
and 2202. The Declaratory Judgment Act authorizes federal
courts to declare the rights and other legal relations of any
interested party seeking such declaration, without granting
further relief. 28 U.S.C. § 2201; Emergency Medical
Care Facilities v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tenn., Inc.,
2017 WL 237650 at * 9 (W.D. Tenn. Jan. 19, 2017). But Section
2201 does not create an independent cause of action.
Davis v. United States, 499 F.3d 590, 594
(6th Cir. 2007). The point of the Declaratory
Judgment Act is to create a remedy for a preexisting
right enforceable in federal court. It does not provide an
independent basis for federal subject matter jurisdiction.
Emergency Medical Care at * 9. Thus, Plaintiff must
allege another basis for subject matter jurisdiction in
federal court. Defendant contends that Plaintiff has not
alleged a cognizable federal cause of action.

CONSTITUTIONAL
CLAIM

Plaintiff,
for the first time, argues in response to Defendant's
Motion, that granting the Fund's Motion would
“provoke” constitutional concerns. There is no
claim in the Complaint that Defendant's actions or
...

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